MTG Salvation

Dread Wanderer is very good versus USA or UR control, or just any deck that durdles a little bit. Given those decks aren't a HUGE part of the metagame (about 11% on modo leagues, though I seem to play 2-3 UR every 5 game league) but I played two 5-game matches against the top stock USA list in paper last night and 4-1'd both times. Between Dread Wanderer and Scrapheap they have no where near enough magma sprays to stop your recursion. In my build I really like the extra one drops and nothing actually feels better than putting a 2/1 into play turn 1. I need to test him more versus stuff like Mardu vehciles but hell that's what modo is for. The game that USA won involved 2 dread wanderers and a scrapheap all getting magma sprayed and him going through 2 sweltering suns to clean up my Pias, Weldfasts and Hanweir Garrison.

Speaking of Garrison, bringing in 2 out of the board against control (in my various iterations of this deck in modo leagues over the past two weeks) has been WONDERFUL. They can't spray it and if they don't counter it you can usually rack up 2 turns of damage output. All your one early drops eat up most of their spot removal so you force a wrath, which is a good thing.

Secondly, I think 2-3 Glorybringers are really a mid-range direction we want to be going. Upping the mana to 24 and having 2 Chandra/3 Glorybringers seems powerful.

Now a major question I want to ask every RB mage in this thread.. we currently have a plethora of discard (harsh scrutiny, transgress so on) and a lot of search-library-get-all cards (lost legacy, disposses etc.) so which do you actually feel NEED to be in our boards?

Hello party people, just getting back into standard after playing Thermo-Burn last year then going on a year hiatus/selling out. I started back recently by collecting ALL the R/B madness cards and 4 Hazorets because I wanted to go that route but was honestly having trouble doing better than 3-2 on modo leagues. I bit the bullet and said I was going to just use the 'GOOD' red/black cards and this thread (even though a little of the info is outdated) has helped me shape my deck. Don't let this thread die!

If white gets a 4 mana unconditional wrath and blue gets mana leak you better sure as heck give red straight up Lighting Bolt.

Agree otherwise.

@ jadegryphon can you explain Keranos in the board? Also what do you think about darkblast as the 1 mana kill spell type deal? Works well with dredge.

I literally logged in just to say the same thing, I remember during coverage they 'read off' a lot of the cards. ( <3 4 thought scour) but never talked about the whole list. Can we piece it together?

Yeah, each ticket is a dollar.

So, looks like monogreen infect has taken fifth (thank you magnus) at another premiere event.

Really standard list.

http://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/234619





Gets a bit spicy in the board. Has anyone played against or know this Fosprey person? I have followed to logic and thoughts behind others lack of spellskites but this dude went full-on with them.

Here's a question I've had a lot recently of my own deck monogreen version. Outside of budget reasons wouldn't it be beneficial to run some Misty Rainforests/Fetches just for the opportunity to turn on the landfall aspect of Groundswell at a moments notice?

Also I read something earlier about as more in-depth bug INFECT primer and I'd love to hear more details from people who play that. I wanna get more of a representation of the difference in play styles between monogreen and BUG. Also, since waterd placed high with monoblack infect a few weeks back has there been anybody else messing with that? I really liked how oppressive it was.

EDIT: Also I wanted to ask what people's thoughts on surgical extraction were? Couldn't that shore up some weaknesses a bit.

Magnus, excellent write-up. My next question to you or really anyone else involves spellskites. I sorta went half-in on the skite plan and currently have two in my board. They've over-performed to be honest. What are your thoughts on this card (and wild defiance) against certain decks. I would never main wild defiance but playing the 'control game against control' I've had success being patient and landing a defiance. Once it's landed it completely invalidates bolts and most any type of direct damage. Also lets you finish in one turn once you see the small chance to do so. People say it's slow but in those games we are playing the more slow role as is.

Also sweet idea with the scrying, those are going in for certain. The logic behind when you want to win with inkmoths is very useful information/something to think about.

Edit, next post.

I'm completely with waterd here. Against UR delver and UWR control it's almost funny that I take the control route.
I'll go more into that in a second, let me post what I've been jamming with lately. I almost dislike this being called a 'budget' deck, because running it in this style actually has a lot of advantages of any of the other versions that cost more. Budget has such a negative connotation to me.

My current list.



Now what I was saying earlier, any deck with bolts/blue tempo magic/paths in general has a pretty good game 1 matchup versus us in my opinion. That's when I go to board and completely hose them. The amount of snapcaster decks (god there are so many) that I know are audibly sighing when I drop a glistener and a free (the fact that is is free is more important than you can ever imagine) crypt turn 1 is hilarious.

Also let me go off on a tangent for a second, I believe that crypt is much better than cage ONLY and only because it costs zero mana. Considering half the games it seems like we are using our god damn lands to attack we truly, honestly really don't want to gimp our own plan by having to do nothing for a whole turn just to drop a cage. I'm dead serious, at least as monogreen we are so pressed for mana in the first third or so of the game it's wild.

I have a lot of questions and even advice actually for matchups, but I just got a bit more work to do (at work imagine that gasp) so I'll hit up another post soon.

This can't die!

My current list:



Emphasis on speed, but undertones of resilience. I've noticed that people have been shying away from Geist and the Trolls, I've read
through the thread a few times and can't really pick out the point (or opposing card being used) where that started happening.

I know how powerful some of the new 2 drops are, but with 8 dorks I really have never had a problem with the 3 drop turn 2. Is
there that much mana dork hate?

In my playtest group I am 70/30 (!) against UWR control and 60/40 against Monoblack/GB smallpox.

Something I have a true issue with is being on the draw and having them turn 2 pox after I drop my dork. Like not only does it cut my knees out from
under me I actually think I may have only won one in 10 games where that has happened, is that normal? Is there nothing I can do and am I really at
the mercy of the pox player when on the draw?

Also one last question: I've thought a lot about 5 drops. Am I crazy or is this really doable? I know bant is a 'fair' deck and getting there is possible
on our ends but I've always wanted to toy with a singleton Battlegrace Angel or especially Finest Hour

After reading his last book, I can promise you anything he writes is well worth it.

I actually have read it twice.

Is there a reason why no one uses these lands anymore?



I mean isn't the off-chance they may help so much better than normal lands in Modern realistically.